


Never Let Them See The Damage

by Duck_Life



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Adults, Beverly Marsh & Richie Tozier Are Best Friends, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Missing Scene, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 11:31:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12480588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: Richie and Beverly share cigarettes and secrets behind the Derry Public Library. Set right before everyone meets up in the library.





	Never Let Them See The Damage

Breathing hard, Beverly fumbles for her pack of cigarettes as she rounds the corner of the Derry Public Library, not ready to head in just yet. Her grocery bag of OJ and vodka thumps against her shoulder as she sidesteps a clump of weeds. She finally manages to extract a cigarette when she gets to the back of the library and spots someone standing there— and she just about jumps right out of her skin. 

“Whoa! Sorry, it’s just me,” Richie says. He’s wearing his glasses. “Jesus, what happened to you?”

“Scary witch,” she says flatly. “You?”

“Paul Bunyan.”

“Oh.”

“Yep.” At least, Beverly thinks with some rotten satisfaction, she’s not the only one rattled by the return to Derry. Richie eyes her pack of cigarettes. “Sharesies?”

“Yeah, here.” She hands him one and holds out her lighter. 

Soon enough, smoke swirls around the two of them in a thin fog, sending a layer of gauze over the town to their backs. Richie exhales in a long train and then glances over at her, noting the purple bruise braceleting her left arm. 

“Walk into a mailbox?” he asks in a low voice. 

She glances up, distracted. “Hm?”

Richie points to the bruise. “That’s what you used to say, back then,” he goes on. “You’d show up at the Barrens with, like, a black eye or a big red mark on the side of your face or a nasty bruise on your arm and you’d say you must’ve walked into a mailbox.”

Beverly flushes, looking down at her feet. “This… this probably happened when I was running away from that witch.”

“Yeah, probably,” he says flatly. “Just weird, then, that it was there at lunch.”

“Alright, look, I didn’t come here to get shoved under a microscope,” she hisses, and it’s not clear which “here” she means, Derry or the place behind the library. 

“I’m not shoving you under a microscope,” Richie argues, “I’m just— ”

“Worried?” she says suddenly, and it sounds like her breath catches in her chest. Hectic red patches flare up high on her cheekbones and her eyes look too bright. “Worried about me?” 

—  _ I worry about you, Bevvie.  _

Her father’s/Tom’s/Bowers’/Pennywise’s voice echoes in her head, ricocheting around her skull.

“— don’t need you to look out for me, Richie.”

—  _ I worry about you A LOT. _

“I’m not  _ worried _ , Bev, I’m pissed,” Richie clarifies, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “I’m pissed off that I’m so scared. I’m pissed off that we all forgot each other. I’m pissed off that you managed to get away from your garbage father but some guy is still treating you like shit. I’m just…  _ angry _ .”

Bev doesn’t talk again until her cigarette has smoldered down to a nub, and she drops it on the ground and stamps it out. “I’m angry, too,” she says, the flame gone from her voice, and she sounds old and tired, like another 27 years passed between lunchtime and right now. “But I think angry is better than scared.” 

“Bevvie, if we don’t die here, please don’t go back to that asshole,” Richie says in a sudden stroke of honesty and seriousness. “Get away from Tom, get away from him and all the other Toms and Henrys and Mr. Marshes. If we don’t die here…” He sighs. “We… we’re probably all gonna die here, right?”

“ _ Sure and begorrah, me foine boyo _ ,” Bev says, copying his Irish Cop Voice. 

“Then I need another cigarette.”


End file.
